Archive for boe

Sunshire, a SCOD sister community, owned and run mostly by women; survived the apocalypse as well our own East-Coast SCOD shire. Sunshire was in the Mid-West, amid farmland as our area once was, before the devil-lopers came and destroyed most of our farms and wilderness. The tale I will tell now, is how we were able to make contact with the inhabitants of Sunshire again, after the collapse of our high-tech communication systems.

Mamma Karebear and her daughter Ranger Tess contacted me before Armageddon, about building a SCOD style eco-village in Misery, Kansas. My first thought was that is a terrible name for a county, and reminded me of Stephen King’s horror novels. However sometimes people make all the difference in why we do things. Karebear and Tess were good-hearted, kind, and creative people. They had already been developing their homestead as a working animal farm, but wanted to attract more people to build more of a community that lives there, which would help preserve the acres of natural land also. It was because of their dedication to sustaining cooperative communication, that we were able to draw up some plans and work together.

Karebear and her husband Brock, were first generation hippies. They were artists and farmers, and when they purchased their land in the 1960s, they began restoring the old german farm-house on the land. What little money they had came from their contract work with graphic art companies, and they made friends with everyone in the area that was the least bit friendly, as well as artists and naturalists. Some of their friends were famous environmentalists, and they hosted parties to encourage involvement in the Green Party, and other alternative ways. Their land became a sanctuary for hundreds of animals, and they raised their children to share their food and beds with dogs, cats, sheep, chickens, rabbits, and mice. The animals were like human family to Karebear’s family, except that some of them they killed and ate.

Tess was raised in this creative zoo, as a wildling steward. Tess made her own clothes, and her preferred garb was medieval style (SCA). Tess wrote stories and made videos which she published. She suffered from intense stomach pains, until she became deathly ill, and had to have medical doctors at a hospital operate to fix it; and so her life was saved. Her doctor bill afterwards was 10 billion dollars, so it is lucky that the Apocalypse ended bill collecting, as both phone lines and the national economy had been made obsolete by global mass conflicts, plagues, and famines.

In the early 21st Century, we designed and built a number of alternative architectural structures on their land using SCOD theories that fit their family and land. We began with repairing old sheds, building a green-house solarium addition to the old house, and smaller new out-buildings and follies that were affordable. Then we kept collecting materials and raising public funds, and constructed a small hobbit house, a-frame barn, and tree house. We were gearing up for more constructions like the medieval longhouse, and glass pavilion; when we heard on the news that WW3 had started, with terrorists and rebels over-throwing governments from the inside out, in mass attacks. The Mid-West did not see as much conflict as in larger urban areas of population, but it did not escape plagues, and did not need to be a metropolis to feel the effects of being cut off from public utilities.

I was not living there full time, and had only helped part-time over the years, a few months at a time. Since Armageddon started in late summer and fall, I had already returned to the East-Coast shire. That was the last time I would hear anything from Sunshire for many years.

As I learned later, Karebear and Tess had gathered all their nearby friends and family to Sunshire; and began survival plans to deal with the new reality that was emerging. Trade soon became more economically important than cash or credit, regarding outside transactions. It became quite clear that distance would be as problematic as it was before the industrial age. Ranger Tess had a plan, which involved horses and magic.

“Sometimes i think about the future of SCOD. It is very much a reality for me. i have been involved with another group of friends that originally began as a book study group based on the works of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and later, his other books. This evolved into a discussion group concerned with cultural collapse, environmental collapse and sustainability. This group of friends has maintained relationships with one another since 1997. Many, many people have come and gone in the group, partially due to the mobility of our culture. We had a picnic in the park today and talked about how we came into the group and what made us stay. Over the years we’ve talked about deepening our commitment through tribal ventures, community, etc. None of that has really happened on a grand scale but what has survived is the give support-get support that Quinn talks about in his books.
That brings me to SCOD. i was drawn to SCOD because of the similarities. We don’t have the luxury of physical closeness that my orignal group has (although some of us in our Ishmael group are several miles from each other) since SCODians are spread all over the country… and some outside the country. However, because of the internet we are able to share things on a daily basis. We can ask for advice, learn new things, share our own experiences and ideas. …or just be there if someone needs a friend. Developing local groups is the best way to create commitment, but not always feasible. The SCOD village and pub would make a huge difference as a place to bring all these practices into fruition. There are so many talented, active, caring, sharing people in this group and it would be awesome to get lots of them together in one place.

It is my hope that for those of you that are able, to reach out and be there for each other. As time goes by you will find it is one of the best investments you’ve made in your life. But for now i am content to have all of you people as my friends. Thank you for enriching my life so much and helping me to continue to grow.”

“Once upon a time…in search for community…isn’t that what we’re all doing here? my family looked into moving to an Intentional Community, hopefully one that championed both the environment and the arts in which both my husband and myself were trained. Zendik, which was in Texas at the time, and has recently disbanded after moving to W.V. and leaving it’s property up for sale, was one of the top considerations of the 36 communities we wrote to. An artist community where people understood each other and celebrated diversity and the freedom to practice your art be it music or painting whatever moved you. In reading this i was sad to see the fall of Zendik and wonder how many other efforts like theirs have fallen. Yet here we are. Stay with me now, i know i suffer from excess verbiage. Here we are reaching out to each other for community. Our culture has tried to mimic it through churches or the camaraderie of sports. And to some that is enough. You go home. No more responsibilities to other people. No sharing -which is at the very heart of community. Yet wouldn’t it be nice if we could be in closer proximity to share ideas and help each other build garden beds or clothes lines or front porches where we could sit an have a drink together or drum and watch the sunset? This is what brought me to SCOD. It’s always here to see what you guys have done today. You give me ideas of what i can do tomorrow. And this medium has made it possible for like-minded people to talk about things that matter. that’s real community.”

“When we came here a quarter of a century ago we bought 80 acres and a caved in house. We raised the little German cottage from the dead, and began to build our dream of raising rare breeds of livestock that are on the endangered list. We began that dream with American Milking Devon Cows, now extinct in England; then added a few rare breeds of chickens. Well, as Buffy Saint Marie says in her song The Circle Game, our dreams had lost some grandeur coming true. Then came Tess, our grand-daughter who we adopted. I home-schooled her and she grew up knowing every rock and tree on Schoenridge. She learned how to save wildlife and birth calves. She rehabed wildlife for M’Shoogy’s (means Crazy in Yiddish)–look them up on the web, they’re right down the road from us. There have been raccoons, falcons, and deer. One deer still begs for treats at our kitchen door and walks in the woods with us. Tess trained a falcon to come to feed at the sound of her flute, even after she had released her. Now-days there are 70 animals living here…maybe more. We have three American Guinea Hogs going to the University of Minnesota next month. Tess has Silver Fox Rabbits coming from North Carolina on Sunday. She has Dexter Cattle and her fiance’ Ivan raises Chocolate Turkeys. They have quail, alpacas, horses, and goats. Drogo calls it our Sanctuary, this strange mixture of Humane farming and wildlife rehab. Well, it’s mostly Tess’s desire to take up the mantle and continue and improve what we can do in this little piece of the world. Downwardly mobile. That’s what we are. This is our purpose and our pleasure. We all need one.”